Josh Marshall hits the nail on the head

I've been thinking the same thing for a while now and just waiting for someone to express it in print. Josh Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo.com comes to the rescue.

I've watched presidential campaigns with some degree or another of attention back to 1980. But the 2000 election was the first I observed with any sort of inside access. Looking back on that race -- and I say this as a real admirer of Gore -- the problem was not the strategy so much as the multiplicity and mutability of strategies the Gore campaign had. Indeed, the real problem, one might say, was the campaign's susceptibility to mau-mauing and aggressively proffered free-advice from pundits and other Democrats.

Putting that more simply, the Gore campaign listened too closely to its critics and paid a price for it.

The Kerry campaign doesn't seem to have that problem. And my gut tells me that's a good thing.